3 ms·

I'd say the publisher explicitly naming the deceased in the context of a potential source counts as some evidence, at least. If you believe that Assange is a R

I'd say the publisher explicitly naming the deceased in the context of a potential source counts as some evidence, at least. If you believe that Assange is a Russian agent, then sure, maybe it's not slam dunk, and it's just a very convenient situation for him that this unfortunate DNC staffer was gunned down under suspicious circumstances and now he can tell everyone that was the source and Rich isn't alive to deny it. But it's not "no evidence" nor is it "personal reasons". If anything, the instantaneous flip against Wikileaks and Assange after they published documents implicating the establishment's favored candidate has a much more arbitrary feel.

seppin 7y ago
> If you believe that Assange is a Russian agent, then sure, maybe it's not slam dunk He had a TV show on the Russian state propaganda network where he tore into Hillary Clinton all day. How much more gift-wrapped would you like his intentions to be? > this unfortunate DNC staffer was gunned down under suspicious circumstances Not only bullshit, but harmful, debunked bullshit. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/were-seth-richs-parents-stop-politicizing-our-sons-murder/2017/05/23/164cf4dc-3fee-11e7-9869-bac8b446820a_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/were-seth-richs-pare... > I'd say the publisher explicitly naming the deceased in the context of a potential source counts as some evidence, at least. See, no it doesn't. It proves absolutely nothing. They can claim whatever they want as a way of distracting from their partnership with the GRU. And they know people like you will accept it as long as it fits their narrative. No evidence needed, hardly any effort either. Just mention his name on Fox News and run with it. I don't care if you can code, only people lacking in critical thought capacity (being diplomatic) believe conspiracy theories with no proof other than it fits their worldview.
- cookiecaper 7y ago
  > Not only bullshit, but harmful, debunked bullshit. Debunked in the opinion section? He was gunned down under suspicious circumstances. It's not less suspicious if you believe a gangster did it rather than a hired assassin, and regardless, giving Assange documents doesn't cast a magical force field protecting one from street robberies. Did Russians hack the DNC? Probably -- Russian botnets attempt to brute-force basically every internet-exposed endpoint around the clock, just check your logs. It's neither here nor there. >He had a TV show on the Russian state propaganda network where he tore into Hillary Clinton all day. How much more gift-wrapped would you like his intentions to be? >I don't care if you can code, only people lacking in critical thought capacity (being diplomatic) believe conspiracy theories with no proof other than it fits their worldview. Right, because "Assange is a Russian operative" is apparently not a conspiracy theory, because allowing RT to broadcast your TV series is apparently all the proof we need. Larry King, Jesse Ventura, and the late Ed Schultz are therefore also Putin lackeys, because there's no other explanation for cooperating with a television network that claims penetration into 700M households worldwide, just like there's no reason to ever have any business dealings or attend any meetings in a country that hosts two of the world's largest cities (Moscow home to 12M and St. Petersburg home to 6M). True Americans work only with local network affiliates and never venture outside of their small towns.
  - seppin 7y ago
    If you actually read the link I gave you, it's the murder victims parents saying there was no suspicious circumstance in their son's murder, and bad actors are using it for their own destructive political narratives. Like you. This is why you don't engage conspiracy theorists even causally. If you don't insist that all opinions are evidence-based, literally anything can be true and anything can be false. The car that backfired outside my flat is a gunshot from a deep-state operative and here we go i'm blogging. > Did Russians hack the DNC? Probably Perfect example. "Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. We can never know." Yes we can. Unless we want to believe something else, then all it takes is a conspiracy theory about a murdered DNC staffer with no evidence and we have confirmation of what we believed all along. "Who is to say i'm wrong?" Right? This is a never-ending rabbit-hole of shit that you apparently love to be in, I don't. America is far from perfect, there is much to criticize of it, but they aren't waging an all-out war on objective reality to keep populations confused and infighting so a corrupt few and keep power. That's Russia. That's increasingly China. And you are gladly helping in their efforts, whether you realize it or not.
  - arcticfox 7y ago
    What do you think of his parents saying he was excited to be working for the Clinton campaign? That there was no suspicious anything found on any of his documents? That he didn't even have access to any of the emails? They gave a mountain of evidence why his death has been turned into a political conspiracy theory. There is next to no evidence in favor of your theory. The idea that Assange's comments are in favor of it is incredibly weak - he was receiving additional information after Seth Rich was already dead.
    - cookiecaper 7y ago
      First, it's tragic and sad that Seth Rich's parents needed to publish an op-ed to discourage "reporters" from calling incessantly for anything, let alone harassing them over whether they think he may've sent a copy of some emails to someone. I have kids and if one of them was killed on the street, the only emails I'd care about would be those that implicate their killer. But that's how I read that article -- a plea to stop harassing them, and their official on-the-record statement which, yes, indicates they don't believe he would've been a source, so that people will reference that instead of continuing to harass them. As for "a mountain of evidence", the only substantive statement as to whether or not Rich actually provided the mails is that investigators apparently told them that they didn't find any evidence of communication with Wikileaks or Assange on any of his computers, but of course, if someone is providing documents to Wikileaks, the fact that they didn't leave evidence of that sitting around on their known workstations isn't really a shocker (nor would it be a shocker if there was evidence on his known workstations and DC police just don't know how to do computer forensics). I don't think his parents are really equipped to understand whether or not he would've had access to emails -- as most of us here know, most moderately-capable technical people can access virtually anything in a company's network. Remember that Podesta's Twitter was "hacked" during this whole affair because his password was trivially easy to guess; it's not like we're dealing with the NSA here (though note, Snowden was still able to exfiltrate the toppest-secret of the top-secret documents from there). I'm not really sure what you're looking for, but I guess I can backtrack if it'll make you feel better: it's entirely possible that Seth Rich wasn't the source of the emails and it's probably not prudent to say "Seth Rich provided the emails". I take back the definitive tone and will refrain from such certitude it in the future. The emails definitely could've come from somewhere else, possibly even actual Russian intelligence; ultimately, the source doesn't matter because nobody questions the authenticity of the documents. That said, it's entirely possible that Rich was a source and that Assange wasn't just heartlessly exploiting a convenient homicide. Personally, I put a lot more trust in Wikileaks and Assange particularly, whose hacker ethos is well-known and lifelong, has a long track record of verified and reliable journalism, and publicly suffered for the courage of his convictions by living in exile than I put in career politicians and media barons who are trying to distract from their ultra-embarrassing performances throughout the 2016 election cycle. The establishment was so certain that Trump would be crushed that they issued "Madam President" commemorative editions days ahead of the election. We can't pretend like they're not going to try to excuse that with something, no matter how ridiculous they have to get. No coverup or wide-ranging conspiracy is necessary -- just a handful of powerful people implicitly colluding to conjure a scapegoat out of widespread xenophobia and ignorance, which, I think we'd all agree, is nothing new when it comes to the worlds of politics and mass media.

seppin 7y ago

> If you believe that Assange is a Russian agent, then sure, maybe it's not slam dunk He had a TV show on the Russian state propaganda network where he tore into Hillary Clinton all day. How much more gift-wrapped would you like his intentions to be? > this unfortunate DNC staffer was gunned down under suspicious circumstances Not only bullshit, but harmful, debunked bullshit. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/were-seth-richs-parents-stop-politicizing-our-sons-murder/2017/05/23/164cf4dc-3fee-11e7-9869-bac8b446820a_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/were-seth-richs-pare... > I'd say the publisher explicitly naming the deceased in the context of a potential source counts as some evidence, at least. See, no it doesn't. It proves absolutely nothing. They can claim whatever they want as a way of distracting from their partnership with the GRU. And they know people like you will accept it as long as it fits their narrative. No evidence needed, hardly any effort either. Just mention his name on Fox News and run with it. I don't care if you can code, only people lacking in critical thought capacity (being diplomatic) believe conspiracy theories with no proof other than it fits their worldview.

cookiecaper 7y ago
> Not only bullshit, but harmful, debunked bullshit. Debunked in the opinion section? He was gunned down under suspicious circumstances. It's not less suspicious if you believe a gangster did it rather than a hired assassin, and regardless, giving Assange documents doesn't cast a magical force field protecting one from street robberies. Did Russians hack the DNC? Probably -- Russian botnets attempt to brute-force basically every internet-exposed endpoint around the clock, just check your logs. It's neither here nor there. >He had a TV show on the Russian state propaganda network where he tore into Hillary Clinton all day. How much more gift-wrapped would you like his intentions to be? >I don't care if you can code, only people lacking in critical thought capacity (being diplomatic) believe conspiracy theories with no proof other than it fits their worldview. Right, because "Assange is a Russian operative" is apparently not a conspiracy theory, because allowing RT to broadcast your TV series is apparently all the proof we need. Larry King, Jesse Ventura, and the late Ed Schultz are therefore also Putin lackeys, because there's no other explanation for cooperating with a television network that claims penetration into 700M households worldwide, just like there's no reason to ever have any business dealings or attend any meetings in a country that hosts two of the world's largest cities (Moscow home to 12M and St. Petersburg home to 6M). True Americans work only with local network affiliates and never venture outside of their small towns.
- seppin 7y ago
  If you actually read the link I gave you, it's the murder victims parents saying there was no suspicious circumstance in their son's murder, and bad actors are using it for their own destructive political narratives. Like you. This is why you don't engage conspiracy theorists even causally. If you don't insist that all opinions are evidence-based, literally anything can be true and anything can be false. The car that backfired outside my flat is a gunshot from a deep-state operative and here we go i'm blogging. > Did Russians hack the DNC? Probably Perfect example. "Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. We can never know." Yes we can. Unless we want to believe something else, then all it takes is a conspiracy theory about a murdered DNC staffer with no evidence and we have confirmation of what we believed all along. "Who is to say i'm wrong?" Right? This is a never-ending rabbit-hole of shit that you apparently love to be in, I don't. America is far from perfect, there is much to criticize of it, but they aren't waging an all-out war on objective reality to keep populations confused and infighting so a corrupt few and keep power. That's Russia. That's increasingly China. And you are gladly helping in their efforts, whether you realize it or not.
- arcticfox 7y ago
  What do you think of his parents saying he was excited to be working for the Clinton campaign? That there was no suspicious anything found on any of his documents? That he didn't even have access to any of the emails? They gave a mountain of evidence why his death has been turned into a political conspiracy theory. There is next to no evidence in favor of your theory. The idea that Assange's comments are in favor of it is incredibly weak - he was receiving additional information after Seth Rich was already dead.
  - cookiecaper 7y ago
    First, it's tragic and sad that Seth Rich's parents needed to publish an op-ed to discourage "reporters" from calling incessantly for anything, let alone harassing them over whether they think he may've sent a copy of some emails to someone. I have kids and if one of them was killed on the street, the only emails I'd care about would be those that implicate their killer. But that's how I read that article -- a plea to stop harassing them, and their official on-the-record statement which, yes, indicates they don't believe he would've been a source, so that people will reference that instead of continuing to harass them. As for "a mountain of evidence", the only substantive statement as to whether or not Rich actually provided the mails is that investigators apparently told them that they didn't find any evidence of communication with Wikileaks or Assange on any of his computers, but of course, if someone is providing documents to Wikileaks, the fact that they didn't leave evidence of that sitting around on their known workstations isn't really a shocker (nor would it be a shocker if there was evidence on his known workstations and DC police just don't know how to do computer forensics). I don't think his parents are really equipped to understand whether or not he would've had access to emails -- as most of us here know, most moderately-capable technical people can access virtually anything in a company's network. Remember that Podesta's Twitter was "hacked" during this whole affair because his password was trivially easy to guess; it's not like we're dealing with the NSA here (though note, Snowden was still able to exfiltrate the toppest-secret of the top-secret documents from there). I'm not really sure what you're looking for, but I guess I can backtrack if it'll make you feel better: it's entirely possible that Seth Rich wasn't the source of the emails and it's probably not prudent to say "Seth Rich provided the emails". I take back the definitive tone and will refrain from such certitude it in the future. The emails definitely could've come from somewhere else, possibly even actual Russian intelligence; ultimately, the source doesn't matter because nobody questions the authenticity of the documents. That said, it's entirely possible that Rich was a source and that Assange wasn't just heartlessly exploiting a convenient homicide. Personally, I put a lot more trust in Wikileaks and Assange particularly, whose hacker ethos is well-known and lifelong, has a long track record of verified and reliable journalism, and publicly suffered for the courage of his convictions by living in exile than I put in career politicians and media barons who are trying to distract from their ultra-embarrassing performances throughout the 2016 election cycle. The establishment was so certain that Trump would be crushed that they issued "Madam President" commemorative editions days ahead of the election. We can't pretend like they're not going to try to excuse that with something, no matter how ridiculous they have to get. No coverup or wide-ranging conspiracy is necessary -- just a handful of powerful people implicitly colluding to conjure a scapegoat out of widespread xenophobia and ignorance, which, I think we'd all agree, is nothing new when it comes to the worlds of politics and mass media.